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LED
Bulbs & Supplies shown on this page are available
Click
Here to see the products
Let's start
with the basics. To light up an LED you need to run power to the
bulb from a battery.
Using a red
wire (power) and a black wire (ground), I've run power to a single
blue LED. (The wire colors don't matter in the sense that red
and black are commonly used, and make it very easy to keep track
of the power (positive) and black (negative) wiring).
If you have
muliple LED bulbs, you can hook them up the same way, always making
sure the black wires stay with the black and the red to the red.
I'm using
a 9-volt battery here. I've powered as many as 10 LED bulbs with
no issues whatsoever.
Here's a basic
diagram below. Note how each color of wire connects to it's own
color. What this does is continue the power circuit. The power
comes out of the battery on the red wire, and runs back to battery
via
the black wire.
Note I've
shown a switch to turn the power off and on. For me the best place
to put it is on the hot wire, the red wire, just before all the
other wiring.
If you have
tight spaces, and not much room for wiring, then Copper tape can
be used to carry the current the same way. (As shown below:)
Always think
of the power as making a loop. From the battery, to your LED bulbs,
and then back to the battery.
When adding
LED bulbs to a model kit, you need to plan ahead.
Is the power
source (a battery) going to be inside the model, or will the battery
be external, such as hidden in a base or another part of the model?
What about
the switch?
For instance,
on a Cylon Raider I built, the power is inside the model. Note
all the wires. The masking tape holds them in place, primarily
for testing.
Below you
can see how I made the top portion removable, and I've hidden
the battery inside it. (This model uses 7 of the 10mm LEDs)
I used a push
button switch to turn the lights on and off.
Can you see
it below? It cleverly blends in with the model.
It's there
in the center, the round button.
More about
lighting the Cylon Raider model is in
Scale
Model Life Magazine - Volume 2
If a model
is small, or there simply isn't room inside for a battery, then
your best bet is to hide the power source outside of the model
itself. This usually means using a base to hide the battery, switch,
and some of the wiring.
On the Seaview
model I built, which has lighting inside and out, I hid the
wires on the base, through the two stands for the model, and underneath
the "foam" rocks.
So there's
more than one way to light a model. These are just a few ideas.
I recommend
you make a drawing of how the wires will be routed in the model.
Inspect all the model parts and see what the clearances are.
This will
give you an idea of what bulbs and supplies you need.And
also what is feasable and what's not.
LED
Bulbs & Supplies shown on this page are available
Click
Here to see the products
LED
lights work just as well on car models, or any other model project!
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